


Whispers in the Guts

by Angelscythe



Category: Kingdom Hearts
Genre: Angst, Blood and Gore, Blood and Violence, Gen, Happy Halloween!!, Horror, M/M, Red Riding Hood Elements, Slasher themes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-30
Updated: 2019-10-30
Packaged: 2021-01-15 00:36:27
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,324
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21244619
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Angelscythe/pseuds/Angelscythe
Summary: In the Guts of Radiant Garden, you can hear the World crack and shatter. In the Guts of Radiant Garden, the horror creep...One night, Isa went at his Window and disappear.One night, Lea quit his room when they said you must never do it.This night is the last one of their previous World...





	Whispers in the Guts

**Author's Note:**

> First!! Please, note that it's a kindish AU where Lea and Isa wouldn't have decided to become Ansem's apprentice and they are around 18 years old!!
> 
> Second! HAPPY HALLOWEEN Y'ALL!! Do you know in Irish, it was the night you had to put food on the table for your beloved dead one to eat?
> 
> Third! English isn't my first language so i'm sorry for my mistakes and also for my dislexia...

If you listened to anyone, especially Ansem the Wise, Radiant Garden was the most beautiful World in the whole sea of Worlds. And this World got the chance to know there was others Worlds to explore, got the chance to know they really could compete against others. How many Worlds could brag about such fantastic fountains, about flowers shining around and sparkling as a rainbow? Their petals swirling in the soft breeze to land on people and warn them from the inside?

No others Worlds.

Especially because well… Worlds couldn’t brag.

But Ansem the Wise could.

And he was saying it: no others Worlds could pretend against his. To the joy of the citizens, of the drawings made in the pavements, in the fields of flowers in different shapes and colors.

Everything was beautiful. Everybody agreed on how fantastic, beautiful and joyful this World was.

So why…Isa was just lying in his bed, having a hard time to fall asleep, like every night, because… there were those sounds coming from the ground…

Not in his cellar, never his family would allow pest to live in their house or boiler being noisy!

No, this sound was coming deeper.

Every night, creeping through the pipe, there were those sounds… as if something was crawling there and waiting to eat him alive.

Or maybe worst?

When he was just a child, it was really hard to fall asleep and he would curl in his bed and cry in silence. But now.

Now, he just didn’t know.

He was just lying.

His family was really wealthy and his parents got the very big honor to live at only a few paces from Ansem the Wise’s castle, on the other side of the moats, and… every night, there were screams. Lamentations. Sound no Humans could possibly make. The kind of shout, if they really came from Humans, just gave you so envy to actually end their lives…

Lamentations from the side of the house, grating noise from the depth of the World…

How could you sleep?

Not that his parents seemed to struggle with that.

A lamentation was worse than others, making him jump in his bed. He sat and approached the window, his hands twitching.

His parents were really strict and always told him not to play outside, not to play at all, not to act bad, show impoliteness and so many others things. From there, it comes that, whatever they were saying, he would listen to it. At some point he even was listening to the most stupid commands from him. And one of them was to never ever looking outside at Night and certainly not go outside.

One of the worst thing for him because, one day, Lea showed him what Moon was and he became obsessed with it. He loved the form, the message it could hold. He loved the colors and the fact it was remaining when the Sun did though everybody said it was the Sun who made it shine. The Moon was so powerful and tender at once for him. More than trying to know why there was so many weird sounds every night, Isa craved to see this Moon for real.

He just wanted to see it for real.

And he wanted to know why Radiant Garden was so beautiful in appearance but so awful as sound as the joy and the beauty of the flowers were forced to disappear.

Why this night was more horrible than others?

So many questions.

He needed to know.

Isa knew it was forbidden but his parents forbidden him to do everything. They wanted a perfect doll puppet and if they could have, they would have asked him to stop breathing. If he could have done that, he would have…

Just once, he didn’t want to listen to them.

And this command seemed to be a non-sense anyway…

Isa opened the curtains and looked outside, his eyes sought for the Moon he wanted to see more than anything and…

He let out a scream.

A scream that stretched the night and lost in the cold breeze…

The veil of Night was laid on the World since a few hours when Lea slid in his sister’s room. She was asleep, having a day off today. Or more likely a night off tonight. Though it would be see as dangerous and reckless, she was sleeping without even twitching as he moved around her. That kind of sleep was bad for them.

Interesting for him, though.

He came outside of her room, closing the door. As he put on the fishnets of his sister, he knew his mother would have been upset seeing him doing that. Not at all because it belonged to his sister, though. He hesitated but, gathering his courage, he moved to the ‘living’ room. Where they had no sofa but just fluffy covers where they could sit on, and a big chimney surrounded by logs. He wasn’t totally reckless and looked the whole installation meaning to save them from cold days. The three rooms stopped to be used as soon as the winter came because they all preferred to come here, next to the fire and be together to keep each other warm…

Lea grabbed wood and then moved outside of the room ad right toward the door to leave home. And hoped coming back. He pushed his feet in the tiny boots with high heels as soon as he was outside of the house. Here, the sound reverberating in the street was less annoying.

It wasn’t like you weren’t already surrounded by moan and complaints.

Lea walked up to the street, not paying attention to the little covers in mass all along the destroyed sidewalks… He knew what it was.

Because of them, he didn’t want to step outside of the path formed by the road.

It was better to walk on it, and already difficult enough to avoid the hole there. Especially because the Moon was hidden under the clouds. He didn’t thank it at all.

Grunts and moans came around Lea, surrounding him as a creepy chorale.

You could even heard owls and other creatures loving to be outside the night. Even cats were using this time to slid in and search what food remains in front of the houses. Not talking about rats and mice who wouldn’t hesitate to feed themselves on the tiny mass if they hadn’t other choice.

Lea kept walking up the street and then, he moved on the other side.

He walked that path so often in the daytime, his feet were just reproducing what they did so often.

More he moved up, more he saw little mass of covers. All in the depths of that World, they were the people too poor to have a roof on their head, hence why their houses was always exposed to the rain and the wind, and more you were going up, more they have money. Not enough to pretend having a pleasant live but at least the garbage they put outside was a little bit more appealing. When those little stack of covers didn’t try to just steal what they could never have by their own.

Lea tried to chase those thoughts and kept pursuing his quest. More he came upper, more he had to avoid the little balls of covers. Now, they weren’t even on the sidewalks but also on the road and he had to move between them. His heart was racing.

In the day, they weren’t there and leaving his Hell wasn’t a problem but here… Here, he felt shivers along his spine.

If this continued that way, he would have to pass _above_ them and he was mortified at this mere idea…

He was on his very tip toe, not wanting his heels to awake them.

Something grabbed his ankle.

He let out a scream of fear.

“Come here!” one of the little mass of cover said.

As said covers were pushed out, a face with beautiful blue eyes hit Lea. The fingers with long nails were digging in his ankle. And he saw the man taking a little knife.

“It won’t hurt you,” he whispered with a smile.

His tiny blade approached Lea’s leg as much as the teeth, the man showing impatience to be feed. At last.

Blood splattered.

A scream echoed in the street, making move all the little amount of covers. Not only the scream had reverberated against the slum but a powerful smell of blood soaked the air now. And it was as if a shoal of piranha suddenly awakened.

“You… You want to eat?”

Lea’s hands were closed along the long stick of an axe shining with blood. In the floor, the man, still his fingers around Lea’s ankle, was bleeding, the skull opened in half.

“You can eat now!” he let out, fear and anger lying in his shaking voice.

It didn’t fall on a deaf ears and all the covers started to move, revealing so many pale and thin bodies. They were all moving toward that fresh corpse.

But if there wasn’t enough for them all.

With just one corpse?

Lea shivered even more and receded, his hands shaking on the axe’s handle. He moved around the body and ran to flee from this horror, from the sound of the teeth entering in the flesh, of the blood streaming along the skin.

He ran.

He ran as fast as he could.

He ran until he stumble on his heels and fell on the floor with a big sound. Crying, yelling, he turned and moved his axe up.

To protect himself.

To save his life!

He gasped when he realized he was alone.

His Heart was racing like never and, sat on the floor, his thin black short grabbing the humidity around, he allowed himself to cry more. He had been so afraid!

He knew those kind of things could happen. They all needed to live and he had already tasted Human’s flesh when he hadn’t other way to survive. He wanted to believe none of his family had actually killed for having this meat but what if? _He _had killed. There were blood on his face and on his hands. There were blood on his legs and on his belly because he was wearing a tiny top. He wanted to whip it but knew he would only spread more and he didn’t dare to touch his skin.

Instead of that, he grabbed the long cape he was wearing and let the blood of that murder meet the red of the fabric…

He closed his eyes a few seconds, trying to order his thoughts.

Lea was still shivering when he got up. It was hard to walk but he still did it, moving toward the upper side of Radiant Garden. As he moved, still holding the axe to push back anyone who would like to taste his flesh, he thought again at his plan to cross the barrier.

During the day, he just used the different canals but here, the viaduct was discharging there and the dam were open.

Ansem the Wise knew what he was doing.

He knew the pest of his World would try to cross the place at the moment where it was the easier, with less guards in the streets. He wouldn’t allow that!

It was also the best moment to fill back his moat.

But this sound of streaming water couldn’t prevent the sound of the fear and the moans from the very inner part of Radiant Garden, the poor side where eat or be ate was a real law. It couldn’t prevent the sound of the flesh being eaten, of the bones being crushed, swirling and came to the World above.

They had the chance to live in Heaven but Hell would catch them back every night…

Lea kept walking until he arrived to the big gates where Guards always stand in front of it. He slid the axe in his back and grabbed the side of his hood to push it over his face. He took care as he was coming to them.

The sound of his heels on the floor made turn the guards’ head.

Lea looked down, making slide the hood over his head a bit more, though it was a bit difficult because of the spikes of his mane but though.

“Hi,” he said with a voice seeming softer than usually.

“Hello,” one replied. “What are you doing here?”

“I’m coming to work, Lea muttered.

“I never saw you?” the other guard said.

He walked toward Lea who couldn’t help but shiver. He was afraid he would turn up his face. If his tall and his forms could make him pass for a lady without any breast, at least if you looked quickly and get more interested by his outfit than his physic, it wasn’t the same for his face who would betray him faster.

“You know how this work?” the man asked.

“I give you half of my profit?” Lea replied in a low voice. He felt looks over him. “My sis’ told me so. I replace her.”

“I see,” the guard let out. “If you know, pass. And don’t try to fool us.”

Lea nodded slightly and bypassed the one in the left to go to the grid. One of them came to open him. His face still hidden, just his lips appearing, he threw them a smile. He passed through the invisible line separating the Poor Side from the Rich Side and heard the barrier close on him.

Too bad.

He couldn’t grab anymore his axe and see if killing was that horrible. He was still in shock from earlier but he had to save his life. And here… here, it was just out of hate because he knew his sister was losing most of what she earned here. She always said she would have preferred having the entire money and can do something for all of them but in the end, they kept struggling and they only _seemed_ to have a decent life…

Without them.

If only there weren’t this grid between them…

If only…

He looked down to his hand, still stained with blood…

Maybe he should try.

“What are you waiting?” the guard asked.

“Uh… I… I walk up the stairs?”

“Yes,” the man replied.

He seemed annoyed. That didn’t disturb Lea. He was just disappointed against himself because he wasn’t able to do something. To protect his family.

But he just walked toward the stairs. They were in a tight spiral and as he looked up, he couldn’t see the end.

Lea knew about those stairs, obviously. But he didn’t know they were like that…

Now, he understood why his sister hated those stairs and always came back more exhausted. Hs way was less punishing at less.

He had no choice and started to walk the step one after one, keeping the rhythm.

Here, the smell of the death was hugging him and accompanying him in his journey. The Guards probably didn’t bother to take the stairs, or they weren’t even from the Rich Side as such, because it still had the horror. Most of the citizen of this sad Poor Side were weak and searched something else in the Rich Side. They fought every day to hope reach something else one day. They had no hope but maybe be able to be allowed up there. When they finally received the right to climb the stairs, they were already malnourished, tired, old sometimes and the steps were showing that.

Every now and then, he could see corpse more or less fresh.

The smell passed from ‘awful’ to ‘absolutely unbearable’. Lea had to force himself to look away and he almost had puck seeing a fresh corpse with strange colored part and maggots. He had to do his best to pursue which was so hard because breathing here was an horror. He kept coughing.

And he could hear the sound coming from the Poor Side itself, people moaning, fighting, begging Ansem as if he was a God who could save them from that.

He knew Ansem wasn’t a God. He knew what he held in the depth of his Castle. He knew why the Poor Side had screamed and moans reverberating. He knew why Isa always talked to him about those same things, coming from the Castle itself. The same reason that pushed him and Isa to go on the Castle so many time.

Ansem was a Monster.

Radiant Garden was so beautiful and everybody was happy to live in this World holding so many colorful and pretty flowers.

But this was just a lovely paint to hide the horror lurking in this World.

Lea glanced at the corpse on the last step. He closed his eyes and moved away. It was so sad…

He walked out of the tower, literal out of the bowels of Radiant Garden and the soft light of the Moon welcomed him, the clouds having moved away. As if the Moon itself was welcoming him.

He could only smile.

Isa was his Moon and so, being welcomed in such a way was important for him. As if Isa himself begged him to come.

Or maybe it was just him who thought about that because he wanted to see him more than anything?

He had to fight against the envy to go to see him.

The idea was him to go search after their friend in the Castle of Ansem the Wise, because Isa couldn’t… It was already hard to have him coming outside of the Castle in the daytime…

He had to focus. He had to go in the castle.

Though he doubted he would be allowed inside. However, he had to keep his sister’s clothes because they were his guardian for now.

Lea allowed himself again a few minutes to rest then he moved right toward the Castle.

Well… right toward the Castle but Isa didn’t live that far away from there. He could allow himself to give a quick check, isn’t it?

The idea in mind, Lea felt his mind slightly lighter. He didn’t know how he would have to explain the blood on his hands, the axe in his back and this outfit but he could use a hug from Isa, honestly.

And maybe they could just… run away?

They always said they wanted to.

Their friend had disappeared overnight and while they wanted to believe she was somewhere, Xehanort or Ansem should have the reply, they couldn’t find a way to find her back. All he saw today let him believe she was just dead and they have to pass on something else.

They could run away…

Radiant Garden was big enough anyway.

He would give anything he had to Isa. Well… it wasn’t much but as long as he’d be with Isa he was ready to have nothing. He was used to have anything. He could continue like that. He was more afraid for Isa…

The cold breeze was swirling around him, trying to wash him from the smell of the poverty and the horror, of the corpse, and the blood. But it couldn’t. It was a part of him and every time his heels hit the floor, he couldn’t help but think about his sister doing that so often, sometimes not coming back for days…

He shook his head, trying to push away the thoughts as he approached the house of Isa.

He knew he shouldn’t but he walked toward the garden gates and pushed it before looking up at his best friend’s window.

And he froze.

The windows were opened and the curtains flied in the soft breeze. The Moon beamed directly there to show him the real horror. The curtains didn’t just fly away… they were ripped off. And you could see pieces of glass everywhere in the flowers field just under the window.

Lea approached in horror and saw the earth turned over.

“Wh… what happened?” he muttered. “N… No. Isa? Isa you’re here?” he called.

No replies. But he hadn’t shouted. And maybe… he was just asleep.

It was that! Of course! Isa was just asleep.

With his window open that big.

And the curtains destroyed.

“ISAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA?!” he shouted.

He heard sound in the bushes.

His heart jumped in his chest. He wanted to dash to it, sure it was Isa but… but he had grown in a place where you have to take care. Obviously, he was taking care. He removed the axe from where he had put it in his back and approached the bush.

“Isa? Is that you?”

A groan replied him.

Nothing human.

An animal?

Maybe Isa was in his room and the one who had attacked him had brought an animal with him?

“I’m warning you, I’ve an axe!” he said as loud as possible.

To be heard by the guy, or the girl, wherever they were.

He was afraid.

He didn’t know what to do.

He couldn’t turn his back to… whatever was hidden there…

Another groan came from the bush and he saw piercing eyes through the leaves of the moving bush.

A beast.

“I’m not afraid!”

He jumped straight for the creatures. The axe should have touched the thing, the monster, whatever it was, but it has jumped on the side and just fur flew away in the breeze. Light blue fur. A big paw snatched him and threw him against the stone barrier around the garden of Isa’s family. The hood fell and the Moon beamed over his face.

Lea searched the axe on the floor, afraid.

In front of him, a big wolf. Bigger than any tales would tell. Bigger than he never met. It has big turquoise eyes.

“I… Isa?” he said.

The beast walked toward him, a growl still rolling in the bottom of his throat.

Lea sat, sure it was Isa. Every fear had vanished. He didn’t fear Isa. Even if he was growling at him. Even if he looked like a huge blue wolf. Because he wasn’t dead… and it was him.

He got up and approached him.

“What a deep voice you have,” he said with a joking tone.

Isa groaned, moving backward.

“Goodness, what big eyes you have,” Lea whispered. “And what a big mouth you have,” he added before kissing the long nose.

The big head rubbed against his and Lea smiled, hugging him back tenderly.

“It’s okay, Isa… I’m here.”

He pressed his head against his.

It was weird for him. But he knew it was him. He knew he was hugging Isa and this was the only thing he could think about…

It was so cold.

The Night threatened to freeze the bones of the idiots who wouldn’t cover themselves correctly. Though Lea’s body was always warmer than others, he would have been one of those idiots if he hadn’t the fur of Isa on him. He had hugged him the whole night, still holding the axe if ever it was needed.

Not against Isa.

Against any people who would want to hurt Isa because they wouldn’t see more than a wolf.

He didn’t want Isa to be hurt.

He didn’t want Isa to have to hurt anyone and have to bear what he was bearing in his moment. He could make it disappear… He didn’t know how yet but he could. While for Isa… he didn’t want to take the risk. While his friend had truly lived sad things and was suffering from his life, probably as much as him, he was living in a cocoon and Lea wanted to keep it closed as much as possible.

He knew this would only be a splendid butterfly who would come outside of it but he preferred to wait as much as possible before seeing it. If that meant his best friend, the one he tenderly loved, would be protected.

Slowly, night gave place to the day. As the soft light of the Sun started to brush Isa, the fur disappeared, letting just appear a young man.

Lea blushed and quickly took out his hood to give it to Isa.

“You feel okay?” he asked.

“I feel… strange.” Isa frowned as he looked Lea. “Why are you like that?”

“Don’t question my outfit! You have none so you accept mine!”

Isa blushed even more than Lea and tugged the side of the hood to protect himself from his view. It was so embarrassing… How could he look him in face now?

He felt a kiss on his cheek.

“Not gonna lie, I was a bit afraid when I saw you but when I knew it was you… You are the cutest wolf I never saw! ‘Kay… that’s weird. You’re always cute though! You were so nice! What are you exactly?”

“I asked myself the same thing,” Isa sighed.

He bit his lower lips.

“Maybe a kind of werewolf?”

“Maybe? My parents never wanted me to look outside or to see the Moon. Remember?”

Lea nodded. “Say! What about using that at our advantage… I’ve an axe and you are a big scary wolf. Next Full Moon, you and I… we go in the castle and we deliver our friends!”

Isa looked down. The next time they saw her, it was a few months ago, just before she disappeared. They had thought about becoming apprentice of Ansem the Wise but they never tried because, two years before when they had tried, they have been pushed back…

He didn’t think it as a good idea.

“What about you and I, we just leave?” he asked to Lea. “I don’t think she I still there, the only way is to just run away. Find her Everywhere. Anywhere.”

“You’re right,” Lea replied. “Now?”

“When?” he muttered.

“Now!” Lea smiled. “Well… after we change our outfit maybe!” he added with a laugh.


End file.
